Ayn Rand and the Prophecy of Atlas Shrugged (2012)

           In 1957 Ayn Rand published a ponderous thousand-page novel called Atlas Shrugged. The critical reviews were uniformly negative from both the left (because it was so pro-capitalist) and the right (because it was so anti-religious). Even William Buckley's National Review panned it. But the novel has never been out of print, has sold a million copies, and has enjoyed popular success for how it "predicted" all of America's putative woes — growth of government bureaucracy and regulations, collectivism, and socialism. Rand (1905–1982) was twelve when the Russian Revolution swept her native country and her father's business was taken over. After she came to America she was an unapologetic bomb thrower who railed against altruism and for the "virtue of selfishness" (a title of one of her books). This documentary film charts the course of Rand's life and thought, and the history of Atlas Shrugged down to the present day. Self-interest triumphs over self-sacrifice in her "objectivist" view of life. Before he was named as Mitt Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan named Rand as one of his greatest intellectual influences. I watched this film on Netflix Streaming.